FlightGlobal.com
Home
Premium
Archive
Video
Images
Forum
Atlas
Blogs
Jobs
Shop
RSS
Email Newsletters
You are in:
Home
Aviation History
1961
1961 - 1592.PDF
696 M 1 SSI L E S 1 961 g Iliffe Transport Publications Led 1961 STRATEGIC BALLISTIC MISSILES: I. Titan 2 (provisional); 2, Titan I; 3, Atlas £, 4, Thor FLIGHT, 2 November 1961 SEREB (Societe d'Etudes et de Realisation d'Engins Ballistiques), which has now come to an agreement on space projects with Hawker Siddeley Aviation. No details of the IRBM have been divulged, although it is unofficially said to be solid-fuelled and—as one might expect—smaller than Jupiter or Thor. Pre- sumably the nuclear tests in the kiloton range carried out in the Sahara have materially assisted in the development of the warhead, but the Colomb-Bechar range would have to be extended for full-range flight testing. from mobile, soft JUPITER IRBM for deployment emplacements ITALIAN AIR FORCE AN D TURKISH AR MY (US Strategic Missile 78) DEVELOPMENT of this weapon system was initiated by the US Army Ballistic Missile Agency in 1956. The following year a famous memorandum by the then American Secretary of Defense forbade the Army any weapon with a range greater than 200 miles, and Jupiter was promptly transferred to the US Air Force. It became very much an orphan, and despite its excellent qualities of cheapness and mobility, found no employment in the US armed forces. Eventually plans were made —very much in camera, and never announced in any detail—for Jupiters to be established in Italy and Turkey. In both cases the units serve a purely NATO function, and may not be employed unilaterally by their own govern- ments. First of the formations to be activated was a squadron of the Italian Air Force. This was for many months receiving instruction from 864 SMS of USAF Strategic Air Command at Redstone Arsenal, and fired its first missile from Cape Canaveral on April 22 of this year. A total of 30 Jupiters is to be deployed in Italy, and unofficial reports have stated that bases for them (presumably for administrative and maintenance purposes, since the launcher can be located anywhere) have been con- structed in south-east Italy in the neighbour- hood of Puglia. The disposition of Turkish Jupiters has been kept even more completely under wraps, but by putting various unoffi- cial reports together a hazy picture emerges. The original agreement to accept the missiles was made by the late Mr Menderes. and after his deposition there was pressure to have it rescinded. Various reports have named the Turkish Army as the user, and suggested that the number of missiles involved will be 15. Enquiries into the programme have met with evasive replies, MINUTE MAN ICBM for deployment from fixed, hardened bases us AIR FORCE (Strategic Missile 80) FIVE years of experience with the first- generation ICBMs has given the US Air Force a thorough knowledge of how such large and complex weapon systems can most effectively be designed, developed and put into operation. But after only two years (i.e., in 1957) it became painfully evident that these first-generation systems suffer from funda- mental drawbacks, which seriously reduce their effectiveness and increase their cost. Apart from the last factor, these handicaps have been ameliorated, and improved versions of Atlas and Titan can be dispersed in hard- ened silos and fired with much reduced reaction time. Nevertheless, in 1957 the decision was taken to initiate an entirely new ICBM system capable of taking the fullest advantage of state-of-the-art improvements in several basic technological areas. Even earlier, in 1955, a special office in the ARDC (now the Air Force Systems Command) had been set up to investigate the feasibility
Sign up to
Flight Digital Magazine
Flight Print Magazine
Airline Business Magazine
E-newsletters
RSS
Events
